“When California was wild, it was one sweet bee garden throughout its entire length, north and south, and all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the ocean.” ~John Muir, “The Bee Pastures”

Welcome to the Los Angeles County Beekeepers Association, founded in 1873, to foster the interest of bee culture and beekeeping within Los Angeles County. Our primary purpose is the care and welfare of the honeybee. Our group membership is composed of commercial and small scale beekeepers, bee hobbyists, and bee enthusiasts. So whether you came upon our site by design or just 'happened' to find us - we're glad you're here! Our club and this website are dedicated to educating our members and the general public. We support honeybee research, and adhering to best management practices for the keeping of bees.

We watched a honey bee buzz into our little mustard patch, her proboscis (tongue) extended, and pollen weighting her down. If she were at the airport, someone would have volunteered to carry her bags.

But there she was, determined to bring back both pollen and nectar to her colony. It's nature's equivalent of gold. It's spring and time for the colony build-up.

In peak season, the queen bee lays 1500 to 2000 eggs a day. Everyone has a job to do, and if you're a bee scientist or a beekeeper, you'll see them all: nurse maids, nannies, royal attendants, builders, architects, foragers, dancers, honey tenders, pollen packers, propolis or "glue" specialists, air conditioning and heating technicians, guards, and undertakers.

What's thrilling this time of year, though, are the worker bees bringing home the mustard.

Want to learn more about bees? Be sure to stop by Briggs Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive, on Saturday, April 13 during the campuswide 105th annual UC Davis Picnic Day. You'll see a bee observation hive, as well as smokers, hive tools and veils, all part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology displays. You can talk to the bee scientists. And you can sample many different varietals of honey.

And over at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, more entomological excitements await. It's the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, plus a gift shop and a live "petting zoo" of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects (walking sticks), tarantulas and praying mantids. Stay tuned!

A pollen-laden honey bee heads for more pollen and nectar on mustard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Pollen-packing honey bee is a sight to see amid the mustard blossoms. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Pollen or nectar? Both please, says the honey bee as she forages on mustard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

We recently uncovered more about a well-known, important honeybee signal known as the dorso-ventral abdominal vibration (DVAV) signal. Known as the honeybee "wake-up call," this signal tells other bees to prepare for an increase in work load, particularly in relation to foraging. We developed a remote sensor which allowed us to monitor honeybee colonies without opening the hive. By understanding the frequency and strength of the DVAV signal in the hive, beekeepers and researchers might be better able to monitor the health of bee colonies worldwide.

In many countries (and in Europe in particular), the woodland habitat that honeybees require no longer exists, so the majority of honeybees only survive thanks to beekeepers, who provide boxes and hives for them to live in. As such, being able to continuously monitor honeybee colonies is essential to their survival.

Problems can arise quickly in a colony, with devastating effects. While commercial beekeepers are doing their best to monitor bee populations in hives, checking on every single hive's population is a near impossible task, as some professionals have more than 1,000 colonies to care for.

Recent research has focused on finding ways to monitor honeybee populations without having to physically open hives. This will help beekeepers better check the safety of their colonies and may help sustain honeybee populations.

A BEE DELIVERING A SERIES OF DVAV SIGNALS.

We have been particularly interested in researching the vibrations resulting from honeybee activity within hives to better understand their in-hive behaviour. By detecting and measuring the vibrations sent through the honeycomb by individual bees, we are able to study and decode the messages honeybees are sending each other.

Bee communication

The DVAV signal is one well-known form of honeybee communication which tells other bees in the hive to prepare for increased work load. This signal lasts one second and occurs when a honeybee grips a recipient bee with her front legs and rhythmically shakes her abdomen back and forth, usually 20 times per second.

Using an accelerometer sensor (which measures the rate of acceleration the bee's body vibrates) with automated recording software, we were able to continuously monitor activity in the honeybee hive. Our research found that we can pick up the DVAV signal in the hive when honeybees pass near our sensor. Knowing this allows us to refine our assessment of the health of the colony, as specific health disorders will be reflected in changes in the hive's overall DVAV activity levels.

This "wake-up call" was not previously known to produce any vibration within the honeycomb, but we now have recorded the associated waveform in outstanding detail. Additional video analysis allowed us to confirm that it was the DVAV signal our sensor was detecting. From this, we were then able to create further machine-learning software to automatically detect and log any occurrence of DVAVs from the data our sensor picked up.

A DVAV SIGNAL IS DETECTED.

We monitored this signal in three hives in the UK and France for up to 16 months. We found that the signal is very common and highly repeatable. It unexpectedly occurs more frequently at night, with a distinct decrease towards mid-afternoon – a trend that is opposite to the amplitude (strength, or loudness) of the signals. We also found that honeybees will commonly produce this signal directly onto the comb.

This, alongside other research, suggests the DVAV signal may not function only as a wake-up call. For instance, this signal might be a way for bees to probe the contents of the honeycomb in order to check the honey and pollen storage levels, or for the presence of eggs. The amplitude of the signal, which varies a lot between night and day, might indicate the context in which the message is being produced. Its nighttime enhanced frequency is both a new discovery and, presently, an amazing mystery.

This new insight into the DVAV signal will help scientists recreate it so that we can try to communicate with the bees. By driving a precise replica of DVAV signal waves into the honeycomb (something not possible before our study), researchers will be able to transmit meaningful messages to the colony. This will let them check that enhanced colony activity is achieved, and will also allow them to further understand the DVAV signal's specific functions.

Our new research builds upon the work done by Karl von Frisch who decoded the meaning of the honeybee "waggle dance". Von Frisch discovered honeybees use it to alert each other of nectar in the area, and it gives highly precise instructions on where to find it. The waggle dance is still discussed today as an example of astonishing sophistication in insect communication. The discovery also prompted a shift in our thinking about other life forms, and how they impact our lives.

With the current evidence we have about humanity's detrimental effect on Earth, it is likely that society's impact on the planet will only get worse. Despite our desire to protect endangered species, we frequently make decisions for humanity's benefit which are damaging to the environment. By highlighting another fascinating element of honeybee communication, we hope that our work will help shift humanity's thinking and make sustainability of the planet the top priority.

This June 2015 photo provided by The Ohio State University shows a bee on a flower in Southwest Minnesota. A new federal study finds that honeybees in the Northern Great Plains are having a hard time finding food as conservation land is converted to row crops. (Sarah Scott/The Ohio State University via AP) A new federal study finds bees are having a much harder time finding food in America's last honeybee refuge.

The country's hot spot for commercial beekeeping is the Northern Great Plains of the Dakotas and neighboring areas, where more than 1 million colonies spend their summer feasting on pollen and nectar from wildflowers and other plants.

Clint Otto of the U.S. Geological Survey calculates that from 2006 to 2016, more than half the conservation land within a mile of bee colonies was converted into agriculture, usually row crops like soybeans and corn. Those don't feed bees.

Otto says bees that have a hard time finding food are less likely to survive the winter.

The study is in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It's tough being a bee--especially when you have work to do and the rain won't let you out of your hive.

But when there's a sun break, it's gangbusters.

To put it in alliteration, we spotted a bevy of boisterous bees networking in the nectarine blossoms in between the springlike rains this week. What a treat!

Nectarines are a favorite fruit of California and beyond. In fact, according to the UC Davis Fruit and Nut Research and Information website, "California leads the nation in production of peach and nectarine (Prunus persica). In 2013, 24,000 acres of California clingstone peaches produced a crop of 368,000 tons of fruit valued at $133,865,000; 22,000 acres of California freestone peaches produced a crop of 280,000 tons valued at $144,418,000. This California crop of 648,000 tons represents 70% of the national peach production. Nectarines on 18,000 acres in the state produced a crop of 150,000 tons with a value of $117,000,000.(USDA 2014),"

Some folks prefer the necatarine over a peach. A nectarine or "fuzzless" peach tends to have sweeter flesh than the more acidic peach, according to the Fruit and Nut Research and Information website. "The lack of pubescent skin is the result of a recessive gene. Nectarine gained popularity in the 1950's when breeding allowed for firmer flesh and better post-harvest handling and longevity."

The foraging bees don't care whether the blossoms are nectarine or peach.